AppleScript – I. Love. Merlin.
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 27. August 2010
I was reading a post of Eric D. Brown by the title I. Love. WordPress. It was a ”wow” effect, I just had to write in our blog here I. Love. WordPress too but I. Love. Merlin. more 
We use WordPress for our blog, and have experience from other blogging systems as well. So I am completely with Eric Brown on that. WordPress is great, but…
Merlin has an even better / warmer position in my heart. Merlin is a professional tool, one can see this at one glance…
Tags: Applescript, Merlin
Applescript – transferring selected structures to iCal
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 13. July 2010
It’s been a long time ago, we’ve posted an applescript sample. The script for todays’ post was initiated by a user support request. The user knows that Merlin can export or sync project and resource calendars to iCal and already uses these options, however he sometimes need to export only some selected structures to iCal and was wondering how to do so.
One possible approach would be, to right click the specific project structures, call “Save selection” out of the contextual menu, open the newly created project and export to iCal.
Another approach may also be to write a script, similar to the ones we’ve written in the past for TimeLine 3D, Things or others, transferring just this selection.
Are you interested in the script solution? Great, here you are. Enjoy the script.
To find out how to place it into your File > Send To menu, please read here more
Tags: Applescript, Export, iCal, Sync
Merlin – How to start Merlin on another localization
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 19. May 2010
Merlin is delivered in 3 localizations: English, German and French and is compatible with the Mac OS X system preferences. This means, is your Finder running in French it will also run in French. Is your Finder running in Dutch and German is listed after it but before English, it will run in German.
To change the preferred system language in French for example, just call the ‘System Preferences’ and the ‘Language & Text’ pane.
Switch to the ‘Language’ tab. Select the language you want to have as your standard language, drag&drop it before the top most entry.
If you now start Merlin, you will see it run in French. Your Finder is by the way not yet French, but it will be the next time you restart it.
We sometimes get asked, how to define the language of Merlin in English when having a French system.
Tags: Applescript, Language, Localization, Merlin
Applescript: Planning weekly recurring activities
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 29. April 2010
Now and then we get asked in support, how to plan weekly recurring activities. The user planned its first occurrence on a specific day (on a Tuesday for example) and simply wants to know, how to bring Merlin to repeat the activity on the next 12 Tuesdays in a row.
Well, there is no such setting in Merlin currently. We would recommend you either copy and paste as often as needed, or drag&drop the planned activity into your library to have it on the long run. You can then modify the earliest planned start date of the inserted copies, one by another and place them there where you want to have them. Meaning; on the appropriate dates.
Another approach would be to write an AppleScript taking over the manual parts of your copy and paste actions.
What a great idea you think, but I don’t want to write an Applescript only because I would like to plan a recurring activity once in my life in Merlin.
That’s fine with us. We have posted such a “Send To”-Applescript in the German Merlin user forum by Google* as a similar question** was posted.
The Script reacts on the selection. It replicates the current selection as often you wish by the offset (in days) you define. So if wanting to accomplish the requirement mentioned in the begging of this post, you start the script and enter 12 (for repeat 12 times) and then 7 (to have them a week from Tuesday)
Easy, isn’t? Have fun and be productive 
_
*) You’ll find the Merlin Google forum for English speaking Merlin users here
**) If you have difficulty locating the mentioned script, simply dowload a copy from our server.
Tags: Applescript, Merlin, Recurring Activities
AppleScript: Custom WBS-Codes
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 7. April 2010
In the Merlin German user forum in Google groups* a user asked, how to define WBS codes for all activities like 1.1.1… but have milestones coded by a leading M (so for example M.1.1.1)
Well, Merlin users know how to define WBS coding schemes. They simply call File >WBS Code Definition… and define a prefix or counters as desired. But such an action would apply the same numbering scheme for all activities and milestones. So how to proceed in meeting the requirements of this specific user? The answer can be, either renagotiate the WBS coding or try an AppleScript approach..
If you can spare one of the three columns (Subtitle, Additional tittle or Notes) just use the following Applescript writing in one of these columns the WBS code of the tasks in the desired manner. So…
tell application “Merlin”
(more...)
Tags: Applescript, Milestone, WBS, WBS Coding Scheme
Merlin integration to GrandTotal
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 22. March 2010
Many Merlin users praise the software among other reasons for its excellent integration with Mac OS X and other Mac applications. In Merlin’s product page one can find a list of possible connections and supported technologies. Just as we finalized our list, we found a new application on the Internet that supports Merlin, called GrandTotal.
It is an invoicing application for Mac OS X with wysiwycg (what you see is what your client gets) features and a layout editor. The software is localized in more than 10 languages.
Read more about GrandTotal here
So how does GrandTotal and Merlin integrate? Simple. By the use of a “Send To” AppleScript provided by GrandTotal, you can let GrandTotal create an Estimate or Invoice from the selected Merlin project structures.
Enjoy Merlin’s flexibility.
Tags: Applescript, GrandTotal, Integration
Applescript: Shifting activity starting dates at once
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 26. February 2010
From time to time we get asked in support, how to shift all given planned starting dates at once in Merlin projects to a new date while maintaining the slacks.
If the activities are linked together, the user may use the dynamic shifting project setting, and define a new planned starting date for the first activity. The linkages between activities will shift the successor activities as needed.
If the activities are set to specific starting dates, and you want to shift them all by the same amount of time, you may consider writing an AppleScript to read the given planned earliest start dates of the activities, apply the desired time offset, and write the new date back onto the activities of the project.
But why bothering writing a new Applescript from the scratch, when there is already one which we have just written doing so? Spend your time on managing your projects, not on scripting. Be lazy and productive. Just click here to download it
UPDATE on August 26th, 2010 : The script was not handling activities with given planned earlier end dates, this possibility is now also covered.
Tags: Applescript, Merlin, Merlin 101
Merlin: Applescript
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 21. January 2010
Is there is a way to print all notes entered in the activity view of a Merlin project at once?
Yes of course. You can enable the display of the ‘notes’ column, disable all other columns, hide the Gantt chart, adjust the column width and the row height accordingly and print.
Should you however happen to have, longer texts than the above setup could show completely, you may consider exporting the file as CSV and import into another application.
If export is much too inconvenient for you, you can use this AppleScript. It writes the project and activity notes into a text file, which you can later on open and edit with your favorite text application to complete your project management reports.
UPDATE: We have updated the script and enabled UTF-8 encoding for the created text file. This solves an issue with non English text (i.e. German texts with special characters) and wrong encoding of these texts, which will be now correctly transferred.
Tags: Applescript, Merlin, Merlin 101
Merlin: Applescript toggle predecessor to successor
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 23. December 2009
The other day we received the following feature request in support:
I’d like to be able to switch a predecessor of an activity, to become a successor to that activity easily (like a menu choice or key stroke). My intent is to easily and quickly rearrange the time sequence of a small group of tasks.
Of course this wish got forwarded to the development, but why waiting when you can script Merlin?
We wrote a small Applescript handling a selected ‘finish to start’ linkage, which you can download here
You can select a ‘finish to start’ linkage line, start the script*, the script reads the predecessor and successor activities, removes the linkage and creates a new ‘finish to start’ linkage from former successor to former predecessor.
You may choose to sort by ‘expected start’ and freeze the sort order afterwards.
Enjoy or modify as you like, but please drop us a line, incase you find this helpful.
*) Read here how to put it in the SendToMenu directory to have it available under ‘File > Send To’ menu.
Tags: Applescript, Merlin, Merlin 101
Merlin: AppleScript removing time constrains
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 11. December 2009
Have you ever entered actuals on an activity, assignment or milestone and noticed later on that you’d better not? Nothing easier than that. You select the activity, assignment or milestone and call Edit > Clear actual values.
Have you ever entered time constrains onto an activity, assignment or milestone and noticed later on that you’d better not? In this case, you should select the activity, assignment or milestone and remove manually all given earliest and latest dates for start and end.
If you would prefer to do these actions in one step for a selection containing activities, assignments or milestones, you may use the following AppleScript:
(more...)
Tags: Applescript, Merlin, Merlin 101
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